Dalek Builder Slates Moff

You may recall that The Grand Moff recently indicated that the Daleks were currently being rested following their rebirth in Victory of the Daleks in 2010.

For many fans, this made perfect sense – after all, at the end of that story, just 5 remained to shoot off into time and space with the apparent aim of rebuilding their civilization. Moffat’s decision makes sense, despite that fact that the new Dalek designs were used just twice.

It isn’t the first time that the Daleks have been rested. Despite appearing in every series of the show from 2005-2010, they were previously absent from Doctor Who between 1967 and 1972 (The Evil of the Daleks and Day of the Daleks), and again between 1975 and 1979 (Genesis of the Daleks and Destiny of the Daleks). So as you can see, as long as Steven Moffat is being honest with us, this move is not without precedent.

However, this hasn’t stopped passionate Dalek builder Ady Davies from claiming that the fascists from Skaro were dropped from the show this year because the new designs are unpopular.

“I don’t think it’s a case that people are fed up of Dalek storylines. I think that people just have a complete dislike for the new design of Dalek.

“These new ones look like Teletubbies. They look like gone-wrong Lego plastic kits. I don’t know anyone who likes them.

“And rather than admit that they’ve messed up, they’re just trying to sweep them under the carpet and give them a rest so people forget what they look like.”

That’s quite an accusation in this day and age of the Internet, and we suspect that Ady was either pulling the leg of a BBC reporter, or hasn’t quite grasped the concept of photographs.

Mr Davies was speaking to the BBC as part of promotion for a Charity Sci-Fi group event at North Swindon Library on Saturday, which is in aid of cancer charities Macmillan and Marie Curie and is memory of the late Elisabeth Sladen.

Well, it’s been over a year since the new Paradigm Daleks were revealed, and certainly children seem to love them as much as ever, with more and more new Dalek toys released. So, let’s have the first of this weekend’s polls…

A long-term Doctor Who fan, Christian grew up watching the show and has early memories of the Graham Williams era. His favourite stories are Inferno, The Seeds of Doom and Human Nature (although The Empty Child, Blink and Utopia all come close). When he’s not bossing around the news team, Christian is a freelance writer specialising in mobile technology and domestic computing, and enjoys classic rock, cooking and spending time in the countryside with his wife and young children. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.